Rags To Riches: Three Daughters Rose To Power, Left

June 03, 1996|By PATTI ROSENBERG Daily Press

The Maloney daughters were all executives at the Pottery once, where they amassed multi-million dollar fortunes. Joan and Rebecca were vice presidents. Alice was secretary-treasurer. But all of them left in the '80s.

Today, Rebecca works part-time for the weekly Northern Neck News while she pursues a master's degree in transpersonal studies from Atlantic University in Virginia Beach. The university is affiliated with the late psychic Edgar Cayce's foundation and most of its students are correspondents, according to a spokesman.

The master's in transpersonal studies is the only degree program it offers. It's an inter-disciplinary program that combines psychology, spirituality and the arts. Rebecca says she's particularly interested in the writing aspects of her studies, which include journal and creative writing.

Her boss at the newspaper, Editor John Peters, says Rebecca is "one of the best writers I have worked with." She covers Northumberland County government, does a lot of feature writing and takes photographs, Peters says.

Twice married and the mother of twin sons who are working at the Pottery and going to college, Rebecca lives with three dogs and five cats in Northumberland.

Alice - who has gone by the nickname "Baker" since childhood - declined through her husband to talk to a reporter. Joan says Alice lives a quiet, happy life in Lanexa with her third husband, Ed Breuck, a real estate agent.

The nickname was born, Joan says, when Jimmy's mother remarked that she didn't like the name "Alice." Jimmy made a joke about whether they should call her "the butcher, the baker or the candlestick maker." For some reason, "Baker" stuck, Joan says.

Alice's first marriage ended tragically when her husband was struck and killed in an automobile accident, leaving her a 29-year-old widow with two small children, Joan says. Her second marriage produced a third child before it ended in divorce.

One of Alice's children from her first marriage, Scott Hawkins, is now president of the Pottery.

Since Joan retired from the Pottery, she has traveled widely, tried to launch a couple of businesses that haven't been particularly successful and become a self-professed "professional volunteer" with various civic organizations, such as the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Green Spring Garden Club, Child Development Resources, the Muscarelle Museum of Art, Avalon battered women's shelter, the Williamsburg AIDS Network, Hospice Support Care of Williamsburg and the Williamsburg Community Hospital.

Her first marriage, to young VMI graduate Kenneth Johnson in 1963, lasted 23 years and produced two children. The marriage fell victim, partly, to her punishing schedule at the Pottery, Joan says.

Joan says she was the main developer of the international import stock and spent months of every year trolling the world for merchandise. In her absence, she says, nannies raised her sons, and her husband fell in love with someone else at the Pottery.

There are no hard feelings; she and Kenneth are still friends, she says, and he confirms that. The collapse of her second marriage seems to be generating more bitter feelings.

"I'm definitely angry," Joan says about Greg Maloney-Schultz, who she married in 1989, and is currently in the process of divorcing.

In 1991 she told a reporter that her marriage to Greg was the best thing that ever happened to her. Today she calls Greg "the worst thing that ever happened to me, except Jimmy."

Joan says she now doubts Greg ever loved her and believes he married her for her money. She intends to see that he doesn't get any more of it, and so far she's been successful. Judge Russell M. Carneal recently rejected Greg's petition for $10,000 in temporary spousal support.

For his part, Greg is pleased to hear that an in-depth story about Joan and her family is in the works. "Great," he says, pleasantly, when informed. "I'd really like to write the book."